Chapter 5 - The Legal Guardian
I backed away from the empty hospital bed, my vision blurring with panic.
I grabbed the nurse by her blue scrubs and demanded to know who took my daughter.
She stammered, pulling away from my grip to look at the paperwork on her clipboard.
She said a man named Mark had presented full, emergency custody papers signed by a family court judge.
My ex-husband had used the time I spent in the interrogation room to steal Emma.
He had filed an emergency injunction claiming I was an abusive, absent mother.
The corrupt judge on my father's payroll had signed the order without a single hearing.
I pulled out my phone and called Mark's number repeatedly.
It went straight to voicemail every single time.
My lawyer stepped into the room, his face grim as he read the digital custody order on his phone.
He told me legally, Mark had every right to take Emma, and if I intervened, I would be arrested for kidnapping.
I screamed that Mark was working with the people who had almost killed her.
My lawyer advised me to wait for a morning hearing, but I knew Emma did not have that kind of time.
If my family got their hands on her, they would make sure she never spoke about the kitchen incident.
I left the lawyer in the hospital room and ran back out into the cold evening air.
I had installed a hidden GPS tracking app on Emma’s tablet months ago to monitor her screen time.
I pulled up the application on my phone and waited agonizingly for the signal to buffer.
A small green dot finally appeared on the digital map.
She was not at Mark’s apartment in the city.
The signal was broadcasting from a private, gated medical facility situated deep in the affluent suburbs.
It was a boutique recovery clinic owned entirely by my father’s real estate conglomerate.
I hailed a taxi and offered the driver three hundred dollars to break every speed limit on the highway.
We arrived at the massive iron gates of the private clinic forty minutes later.
The property was surrounded by a high brick wall and heavily armed private security guards.
I could not simply walk through the front door and demand my child.
I walked along the perimeter until I found a thick cluster of overgrown oak trees near the back delivery entrance.
I climbed the rough bark, scraping my hands and knees until I could drop over the brick wall.
I landed in the manicured gardens, hiding in the shadows of the hedges.
I crept toward the glowing windows of the ground-floor patient wing.
I peered through the blinds of the third window and finally saw my daughter.
She was lying unconscious on a luxurious bed, an IV line taped to her small arm.
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But she was not alone in the room.
My sister Vanessa was sitting in a chair beside the bed, holding a syringe filled with a clear liquid.
